What do I think will cheer me up? Oh yeh let’s get on the bike again
Now I totally blame Nathan Millward for my choice of direction this time. On one of his recent videos he’s down in the Vercours region and having been down there twice I thought 3rd time would be a charm.
With a short window of 11 days and only 2 days to plan, I hurriedly packed. It’s the great thing about being an organised list person, I could lay my hands on everything I needed for the whole trip and was packed in an hour
. I then booked an early morning crossing from Poole to Cherbourg (brilliant, but getting up at 3am to ride down was too reminiscent of my on-call days and left me hanging for the rest of the day). I arrived in Cherbourg on Monday afternoon and took a leisurely ride down to St Lo. I’d packed all my usual stuff and decided to stay in hotels just booked on booking.com to remain flexible.The PCX was a great bike to ride down on, once again comfortable for many hours in the saddle, and with a tank range of about 220/240 miles from 8 litres it meant not too many fill ups. Especially cause the French petrol prices are up at €2 per litre!!!
Day 2 was a nice ride to Blois. Only 300km and always programmed via ‘plan a thrill’ on the tomtom. I’m always impressed with the great roads it pulls up. Day 3 was down to Vichy with day 4 arriving in Saint Jean-en-Royans.
What a great town, it’s got bars, patisseries, restaurants, great walking, and a supermarket and petrol on the edge of town. Perfect.
I stayed for 4 nights giving me 3 clear days to enjoy the area.
My first day there I got up early and headed off on a 141 mile tour around the area, taking in Combe Laval, then heading down D518 en route Col de Rousset to Die, then back up Col de Menee then up to Grenoble, then around Gorges de la Bourne, and home.
I’ve said it before, this is probably one of my favourite riding destinations. The roads are relatively quiet with pretty good surfaces, the switchbacks are tight, views amazing and the balcony roads exhilarating. What more could you ask for?
My second day was spent exercising off some of the many sweet treats I had been eating on the way down. The French really know how to make great cakes!! I left from Saint Jean and headed up a track that climbed all the way up to the Combe Laval through the forest, it was only about 10 miles but big on elevation. The weather was about 26 degrees and sunny so a really good temperature. Much better than back home, so a great call to head down here.
Day 7 saw an early get up and a quick ride up to Combe Laval again (you have to-it’s addictive) and then on to Pont en Royans for a walk around the overhanging houses. Spectacular!
Well that was me done down there and needed to start making my way back up. I wanted to stop at Avallon cause it’s a beautiful small town but also wanted to ride Gorges du Nan. So it was to be a 7 1/4 hour riding day to complete 240 miles. But boy was it worth it. I stumbled on the Gorges du Nan while researching around the area and saw it looked interesting and was really glad I made the effort. It had similar views to Combe Laval, but the side wall was even lower
and the road even narrower so made the experience pretty exciting. At one point I couldn’t even get a good photo as I was a bit freaked out I’d just fall over the wall. Anyway, I live to tell the tale and would definitely recommend going that way if you’re in the area.From Avallon it was a day up to Senlis, again a wonderful town but pretty expensive and then up to Calais where I’m sat writing most of this in a hotel just round the corner from the Eurotunnel.
Calculating my trip, (as you know I love my stats…)
11 days
1,715 miles ridden
75 miles walked
£88 spent on petrol and almost the same on cakes
Once again the PCX125 proved a perfect long distance bike. Over 7 hours in the saddle and not a spot of a numb bum, economical on petrol (best mpg was 148!), 30 litres under seat storage, a tank range of 220+ miles from 8 litres of fuel, and a turning circle tighter than my belt after all the cakes - making the twisties all the more fun when you get there.
So that’s 6,628 miles ridden abroad this year… I really need to stop doing this
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